GURPS General - /gurpsgen/

"Autistic"?

I've been here too long
No, its just a joke in my group that when you get too hung up with statting everything out, you're put your inner autist in control.

Are you new?

Finally, the most important ingredient (pun intended) is how you treat resource gathering inside the dungeon.

Just rolling a survival roll would literally kill the flavor (yes keep them coming), so obviously the survival rolls should only be good for helping the players find suitable food sources. Then you need to play out the adventurers hunting/gathering the monsters proper.

They'll also need proper knowledge skills to know about monster behavior/weaknesses and to avoid food poisoning. Cooking is obviously a mandatory skill if you want to your dinner to not taste like shit (consider morale penalties for eating disgusting/onesided food all the time).

Thanks for the input. I was thinking that the crafting might be one of the big pinch points, but I was also thinking that if one player is specifically dedicated to wood working and/or fishing, it wouldn't be that much of a problem, especially with 100 points. At that level, I'd think you could get your life's work skills to 14 at least, and still afford a few 10 to 12 point support skills. I kinda want to avoid characters being able to afford raising lots of attributes or one attribute by a lot to further encourage cooperation and social mechanics... "No man is an island" kinda thing.

That is true. Even if only one person can do the carpentry to build the ark the rest can help a lot by cutting and hauling wood to the build site, collecting and persevering food, convincing other people of their holy vision to get their help and them on the ark (and to get on, of course).

Even if one person has every skill they need they won't have all the time they need. A person with Diplomacy 14 and Carpentry 14 will have to pick between talking to people and working on the boat.

You know what would be a good fan made splat? A bestiary that matches up with official/fanmade GURPS bestiary that instead of giving stats for the monsters, gives lists of what parts are edible for each monster. It could talk about poison stuff, how to get rid of bad shit, and the resulting health or fatigue recoveries that come from certain dishes.

In official capacities so far we have:
*Low Tech Companion 3 tells you how many pounds of food you can harvest from a butchered animal.
*Dungeon Fantasy 8 tells us how many pounds of *valuable materials* can be harvested from a dead monster
*Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1 has a formula for concentrating the materials gathered in the formula from Dungeon Fantasy 8. It has the same monetary value, but weighs much less and is immune to spoilage.

At it's most basic you need 2 pounds of food per person per day and 2 pounds of water. Or 4 pounds of beer.

You have to budget 28 pounds per person. (Realistically, you will also need to add %20 for the weight of barrels to hold the supplies).

Or you could look at it as a 90 pound 55 gallon barrel can hold enough water for 220 person-days, and weighs 310 pounds. Technically food should have a worse food/barrel ratio (it isn't as dense as water) but some food can instead be stored in nice, low weight sacks.

28 pounds per person/per week, that is. Or 33 pounds once things are properly stored.

Alright, I've always been curious. What is GURPS? How does it work? What kind of system is it? I've heard its pretty modular; how is character generation? How well does it do Sci-fi versus Fantasy?

If you compared it to, say, Stars Without Number, is it more or less lethal? Does it allow for more details for your characters?

Bad news.. Barrels are TL 2, meaning fresh water is going to have to be carried in pottery.

By GURPS rules, a 20 gallon jug weighs 52 pounds (and cost $82 gurpsbucks for waterproof). It can hold 80 person-days of water, and loaded weighs 212 pounds. (2.65 pounds/day for water).

At TL 0 an Outrigger Canoe* is likely your best bet for an ark. 6K gurpsbucks gets you something that holds 12 people and 2.25 tons of material, or 967 person-days of supplies/ 80.5 days for everyone on board. Realistically of course you would need some other supplies.

TL 1 gives a really nice option though, in the form of a large hide currach. A crazy cheap 1k gives you something that can hold 11 people and 3.22 tons of material. For the cost of one outrigger you get 60 people on boats with enough supplies for 125 days.

*A dugout of the same size is 2K less but considerbly less stable. Even a poyneasian might hestate to use one for a long trip

At it's most basic GURPS works by rolling under a skill level on 3d6. Skills are typically based on IQ (Intelligence) or DX (Dexterity), two of your basic attributes, while ST (Strength) and HT (Health) determine your physical power and resilience, with a few athletic skills based on HT.

Combat is moderately lethal. Any attack that hits is likely to cause serious damage unless you have heavy armor on the location that is struck, but every time you are attacked you may defend yourself by dodging, and can protect yourself from melee attacks by parrying. Blocking with a shield can protect you from thrown weapons, arrows and melee weapons.

Rules tend to be rather modular. If you need to know what happens when someone is poisoned, for example, there's a set of rules for that that pretty much covers all posion-related interactions.

Character creation is deep and complicated. It's based on a pool of points used to buy skills, basic attributes, increase secondary attributes derived from the four basic attributes, and to buy Abilities and Disadvantages. Abilities and Disadvantages are a huge part of the modular nature of the system, as many of them are self-contained within the rules.

It dose fantasy quite well. Heroic-realism with combat that feels very weighty and impactful is fun, at least for me. There's lots of options for magic and combat.

It dose sci-fi pretty well, with only the caveat that guns are -brutal- in the base game and a careless player can very, very quickly lose a character.

Sounds a bit like Mutants and Masterminds or Hero System.

How fast is it? My group's sessions are only 2-3 hours every other week; the conundrum being that we like to get a lot done, but don't want a super-streamlined system like an OSR clone. We've tried Stars Without Number, and the base system is too...........simple? Does that make sense?

They don't want to learn Eclipse Phase (I can't blame them; its a crazy-ass system) and none of them liked Traveler, except for one guy who's my age and remembers playing it.

It can be pretty fast if players get combat. The biggest point where I've seen people get stuck is that combat turns are 1 second each and you can't really do much in each.

It's not a big deal, in GURPS, to spend a turn aiming, drawing a weapon or assessing the situation.

Seems a lot grittier, reading between the lines, in the sense that simple actions like that take a defined amount of time.

Oh yeah. Read this PDF for a basic idea for how it goes, but it's very gritty and brutal, moment to moment.

Also, insert typical Edition Wars question. Which is best?

4th is easily the best. The only reason you might prefer not to go for it is that 3rd edition books are VERY cheap and quite good quality.

Compared to D&D, combat in GURPS is both slower and faster, in that each round takes longer (all dem options) but each fight takes less rounds (a few good hits and you're out; no 60-HP damage sponges trading blows here); I guess it's like if everyone was a wizard.

Even then, 3e books rocked because of the fluff 90% of the time. What mechanics are there are easy to convert with the free PDF that SJG put out.

3e had some pretty weird stuff in it (half-point skill investments, passive defense, changing costs for increasing a stat, etc.) that I'm glad 4e dropped.

>Opted to strike at "whatever target presents itself", rolls 3d6 twice and gets 10 and 5, one hit to the Torso and one hit to the Face. He then rolls 1d+3 twice for damage and gets 7 (Torso) and 5 (Face).

>Zach Red HP: -12, Shock: -4
>7 points of cutting basic damage to the Torso - 2 DR leaves 5 points of penetrating damage. 5 points x the 1.5 wounding modifier for cutting damage = 7.5, rounded down to 7 points of damage. Zach's HP are reduced to -5 and he has a shock penalty of -4.

>5 points of cutting basic damage to the Face - 0 DR leaves 5 points of penetrating damage. 5 points x the 1.5 wounding modifier for cutting damage = 7.5, rounded down to 7 points of damage. Zach's HP are further reduced to -12, and he must make an immediate HT check to avoid death.

>Rolls 3d6 against his HT of 10 and gets 13 - Zach dies.

Reminds me..

In GURPS you typically don't just run out of HP and fall over, unless using the simplest set of combat and wounding rules without hit locations.

Instead, you get wounded, hurt and fucked up pretty badly.

I like that idea. In D&D, I've always enjoyed lingering injuries.

Idea: Threshold-Limited Powers, with the ability to "overcharge" them for a One-Use Power stunt at...I don't know, 10x normal FP activation cost? Would want to keep them sealed off from the Transcendent cap, I think.

The goal would be "using powers, especially big ones, invites disaster" and "the power of chaos is unlimited!"

High Pain Threshold is worth it's weight in emeralds.

Ditto for Rapid Healing.

I'd use the existing rules for stunts and trading in extra fatigue from Powers. Trying to pull off a more powerful move always takes at least one extra FP and requires a penalized Will roll. If you allow extra FP to be spent on improving that Will roll, you would have a divide between wild users that push out incredible effects at the cost of running up the tally super fast and in-control users with enough discipline and mental fortitude (i.e. Will) to reliably pull off lesser stunts now and then with little repercussion.

And you've also set the stage for a badass villain with enough stupidly high Will that they can improvise nukes and just not give a shit

Rapid Healing is nice, but Very Rapid Healing is a bit of a mixed bag. It's strictly worse then very slow regeneration and cost 50% more.

If you can, try to suceeded at a Fast Talk roll and get your GM to just let you have 1 HP every 12 hour regeneration.

>It's strictly worse* than very slow regeneration and cost 50% more.
*In games where you can buy Regeneration. Very important asterisk.

Regenerating 2HP/day is definitely worth the 15 points at any TL before Physician. Afterwards, it's still worth it if you won't or can't have reliable access to a physician that can take care of you. Of course, it's worth less with ready access to healing magic, but that +5 to HT vs. crippling injuries is still very nice.

How would one stat a spear with an exploding spearhead if it were to detonate inside of the enemy?

Follow-Up already does the work for you I think. It only hits if you penetrate DR and then does full damage without DR protection. (I think explosive Follow-Up still explodes if you fail to penetrate DR, it is usually for poison it doesn't do damage.)

Rapid Healing is easy to sell me on in any game where you won't have reliable access to magic to patch you up.

Poison follow-up that is injury dose nothing if you don't beat DR. Contact poison works if you hit tough skin DR and don't break past it.

Explosive follow-up dose damage, but DR has full effect. Given the small amount of explosives in most shells that means no damage, if the first attack doesn't do damage.

Shopping list for a TL 1 End of the world

Large Hide Boat $1000
Occupancy 10+1, load 3.22 tons

7x 20 gallon waterproof stoneware jugs ($82 each) $574
Weight 1,584 pounds(264 each). 50 days fresh water per person

77x Week's Status -1 Trail Rations($15 each) $1155
Weight 1,078 pounds(14 each). 49 days food per person.

1x 11 cubic foot wooden box for food storage $178
Weight 88 pounds

Total $2,007

2,750 pounds used of 6,440 cargo capacity

Not bad really. Tickets sold at cost would only be $182.45 and you could give everyone a 335 pound baggage allowance, enough to bring personal effects, clothing and equipment.

This assumes that you could get this stuff together. I imagine the cost would rise rapidly once Atlantas starts sinking under the waves and your tribe is doomed.

Have fun repopulating the world!

Do you think it's valid to apply the ETC and liquid propellant options to firearms?

So basically as an item it would just have a Follow-Up Explosive damage, depending on what kind of campaign you're playing it would only have one use, since it would explode after use. The only difference between a spearhead exploding inside of an enemy is that they get no DR and you can probably count it as a Contact Explosion. P. 415 Campaigns. That would mean it would deal FULL DAMAGE, but have reduced area damage.

Not sure how I missed the section just below that talks about things going off inside someone. That part makes more sense in that situation, basically 3x damage and no DR.

You shouldn't be surprised to know that GURPS has a rule for explosions inside the body. Basic p. 415 in the sidebar:

>Internal Explosions: If an explosive goes off inside someone – e.g., a follow-up attack penetrates the target’s DR, or a dragon swallows a hand grenade – DR has no effect! In addition, treat the blast as an attack on the vitals, with a x3 wounding modifier.

This points out the best way to kill dragons: bribe them with cakes that are actually blackpowder bombs.

D&D conversion user here. I'm done with Incarnum. This sure was a tiring and a time consuming task, but I'm finally done and can rest.

To the same firearm? Technically yes. ElectroThermal-Chemical ignition is, in theory, compatible with liquid or gas propellants.

Is it realistic or feesable?.. Well.. ETC itself seems to be a non-starter, offering minimal advantages at a major increase in complexity, and will likely never be adopted by any fielded weapon system.

>To the same firearm? Technically yes. ElectroThermal-Chemical ignition is, in theory, compatible with liquid or gas propellants.

It seems pretty crazy. 3 times cost, but it gets the medium 7.5mm pistol up to 4d+3 pi damage when using boosted velocity.

>ETC itself seems to be a non-starter, offering minimal advantages at a major increase in complexity, and will likely never be adopted by any fielded weapon system.

Yeah, I mean, computers take up entire rooms and need purpose-built cooling systems to do anything and only offer minimal advantages over slide rules for a major increase in complexity. They're only really useful for scientists and the military. They'll likely never be adopted by the general public.

You misunderstand. ETC did not work out and all research into it ended more then a decade ago. That doesn't mean firearm design won't advance, it's just that particular idea turned out to be shit.

This is more like saying that Dick Tracey wrist camera-phones will be THE THING in the future or that radar beam riding guidance missiles are the way of the future We tried that. Turns out nobody wants that, and it's a bad idea.

Other methods of electronic initiation of propellant are likely to be used in heavy guns. It's open for debate if that will be anything but a very brief stopgap on the way to electromotive weapons.

Wikipedia seems to claim otherwise but I can't tell how old any of their sources are. Why isn't it feasible?

>Barrels are TL 2, meaning fresh water is going to have to be carried in pottery.

Surely gourds, leather waterskins and food with a high water content are also options?

So my game group played through a little teaser with an Ice Demon in a truck stop. It was fun, and we've decided to play a full campaign.

Current setting is 1940s superheros, with the cthulu mythos in the background. Nukes have shattered the seals on the mana in the world.

Current character ideas are the following:
A time cop who's fallen into a bad timeline. Think retro scifi crossed with quantum leap.
A black magic occultist version of Q from James Bond.
A horror writer who's library of forbidden times are teaching real spells.
And finally a Nazi defector Captain America type based off a Valkyrie with the ability to imbue her gear with runes to channel the power of items from myth.

We're going for 250 point buy, and my main question is, are there any good resources for character building?

I've been looking around and haven't turned up much. None of us are looking to minmax, but this seems like we could fuck up worse than 3.5 on building a playable character.

Any advice would be appreciated, I'll be the one playing the Valkyrie.

Well, there's the problem of Tally and Threshold. Sure, a sufficiently badass person can pass the will roll no problem, but once you cross the Threshold anything that happens is Bad. (or as Dwarf Fort players might say, Fun.)

I'll poke at it a bit more with time, the goal is to incorporate Extra Effort, Godlike Extra Effort, and Ultrapower/One-Use Power into it.

Tl0 island campaign guy.

I think I'm going to so some split level tech. There are a few things I'm finding from tl1 that I desperately want for the game, but definitely not all of it. Specifically, I'd like to stick to pre-bronze age weapons, I'm kinda quibbling over literacy but I think it might lead to a nuanced challenge, but I'd like a few of the social improvements and some of the naval technology of tl1.

Seems reasonable, plenty of real-world cultures were on the fuzzy boundary between tech-levels and I think some even bridged a couple of them (I seem to recall some American native groups being TL0 in some areas and TL2 in others).

Can someone teach me gurps

sure thing good buddy

Roll 3d6 at or under skill to succeed on a normal roll. Roll 3d6 at skill, compare margin of success/failure for regular contests, quick contests, and many powers.

Done!

Hello /gurpsgen/ long time lurker first time poster.
I'm going to be running a post-apocalypse themed campaign in the near future but the last time I played GURPS was almost 6 years ago. I finally nutted up and read my old books and started statting out a character so I know how to explain this to my players. I'm planning on going with 100 points with a 30% cap on disadvantages. I want people to be simple, focused, but still have something that makes them special.

Here's a mechanic character I wrote up, any suggestions? I went for mostly auto repair skills and some guns because he works in the ruins of Las Vegas and things can get dangerous. I took surprisingly less advantages than I though and filled in the last -2 I needed with some minor quirks.

I think this looks good but I also haven't gotten into equipment. For post-apocalypse do I set the TL to what era it was before the bombs drop? The campaign will take place in 20XX after nuclear war so I set the TL to 8.

>Can someone teach me gurps

Yes.

mega.nz/#!j00QnIBD!dLTv_yASzxATNQxv4mFK23vi_NOs15KjMx0NTYer6zk

mega.nz/#!r8tDGYBL!5TT9WmUNIfg6l98ns_d2bTpXGXmEYWYEGNtiysFRlpE

Those two books give very good advice, so I'd recommend reading them.

The tl;dr version:

3d6, roll under.
If it works in real life, chances are it will probably work OK in GURPS.
Don't use all the rules, it's meant to be a modular system.
Points are not a balance mechanic, they are a character design mechanic, intended to stop you just taking everything. Some builds will be better than others, for various definitions of better. Many advantages (notably Combat Reflexes and Luck) exist specifically to let PCs be heroic and are very good value for their points.

Have you read the GURPS After the End books? They have a lot of advice and rules material for post-aapocalypse games.

Although there will be many people after an apocalypse with TL8 skills, they don't usually have the resources a TL8 character would normally expect to have. AtE suggests ignoring the normal TL rules for skills and treating the starting wealth as if they were at a much lower TL (I think they are a bit too harsh in terms of the specific level of wealth they recommend, but the principle is sound).

>
>Are you new?

Maybe he's just autistic about the misuse of autistic.

Have not read the AtE books, I was trying to just stick with the core rulebooks for now but they were on my radar for the future. I was pondering how to handle starting wealth though, I figure TL 3 ($1000) or TL 4 ($2000) would be a good number since I plan to have the players act as Rangers and larger equipment like a vehicle would be supplied to them but personal equipment would be all they need to worry about.

I think you can save a point by buying your rifle skill up from the pistol default. Not sure why GCS didn't do it automatically.

I think you will need Engineer rather than just Mechanic if you want to build new vehicles out of scrap or make major modifications.

Gasoline engines might be problematic in a PA campaign. Diesels are generally more rugged and can run on a wider variety of fuels. Gasifiers are also likely to be useful.

You need the scrounging skill. Machinist is also helpful, as is Smith and Armoury.

Thanks, will make some changes.

>...I was pondering how to handle starting wealth though, I figure TL 3 ($1000) or TL 4 ($2000) would be a good number...

The official AtE method is that the world is treated as TL4 for economic purposes, but higher TL gear is available as if everyone had the High TL advantage at double cost for every TL after 4 (as in the Basic Set, p.27) and everyone starts with a TL1 budget.

Personally I think I'd go with something a little more generous and only double costs every two TLs (+50% for +1 TL). Makes things like bikes and guns at least possible to buy for starting characters.

Read pp. 15-16 of How to Be a GURPS GM (and whoever is running the game should give it a read through more thoroughly).

Normally at that point level I'd recommend looking at Action for ideas but that source is pretty firmly mundane. Dungeon Fantasy is the same point level and has all the mystic badassery your group seems to be going for but its templates are very heavily fantasy oriented. The best suggestion I can offer is to look through DF templates and swap out skills and abilities that don't fit the era. For a lot of those swaps you can refer to the templates in Action for help.

Horror also has some decent templates you could use as a starting point. Most of them are way too low in point value for your game but they could certainly provide a framework to build off of.

For the not!Q I recommend Gizmos and Modular Abilities rather than screwing around with the invention and Gadgeteer rules.

Finally, I'd suggest Sorcery for the two with mystical powers (you, the Valkyrie, and the horror writer for his spells). Or Threshold-Limited magic from Thaumatology for the horror writer (and, depending on how mythos-esque your GM wants to go, maybe have him read Power Corrupts in Horrors, pp. 146-148).

the /5e/ guys have mega links for all their books, does /gurpsgen/ have anything similar? I'm looking for all their post-apocalypse stuff but can't find it

...

No, we're all respectful customers who don't pirate SJG's stuff, we do not download illegally their PDFs and we do not check that the OP is a PDF.

Trying to see how difficult it would be to make a usable RPM character at low point values for my TL0~1 game... I got this inside of 95 points, and I intentionally left out adept. Using talents lets one circumvent the requirement of needing high levels of magery/Thaumatology to get SL12+, and I figure if I gave this to a player, and allowed them 100/-50, there is still enough room for lots of customization with ritual mastery perks and all those bare minimum things needed for survival.

2 or 3 more TLs before she gets a last name and a hut?

How fast is gurps combat?

I was being a bit weeaboo, but on a serious note, I think this might be a big change of pace for some of my players, so what I want to do is give them some training wheels by giving them a template to make sure they are at least good at the things they need to be good at, but giving enough wiggle room so they can still make it their own. I think a few path skills at 15 is the *minimum* for making a suitable RPM character, and I'm slightly amused that I fit it inside what seems like very few points, but I also post it incase someone knows a different shortcut. Talents, Higher Purpose and Grimoires (which don't exist though due to tech level) seem like the most cost effective paths.

Depends on everyone's familiarity with it.
Grab the combat cards; they're great for teaching the rhythm of turn by turn.

Like said, it's both fast and slow; indicisive players or newbies that need to go over all the options every round will slow combat down significantly; that's just the price of having a large number of combat options. However, lower HP values, major wound thresholds, and crippled limbs means the fight's probably over in a handful of rounds.

With a little bit of system mastery, aids like mentions, or enforcing default actions, combat can get super fast. Having a favorite move or main technique speeds things along, and once you hit the rythm of it, GURPS combat can fly by.

This... I have a mix of neophytes and veterans.
Veteran 1: "I move this many and stop here facing this way."
Veteran 2: "I analyze the target and take a step this way."
Veteran 3: "After aiming three turns I shoot the target in the vitals using my armor piercing arrows. I roll my three dice with a penalty of 10 for distance and a bonus of 6 for aiming, and succeed."
Neophytes:"How many can I move? Can I attack and move? Ok, I move here and attack... what? I can only do half my move? Ok, I move here and, what? It's limited to 9? Ok, can I wait instead for the enemy to come close to me? Ok how many dice do I need to roll to do that?"

You can start with a TL5 gun in ATE without breaking the bank. A TL8 gun is just out of reach

I'm not sure what TL waterproof gords are. To avoid rot you'd really need wax or another waterproofing material, but they would offer an interesting option. High water content food runs into the problem of packing it for travel, in that most of it will only last 3-4 days before rotting, but the flesh of marine animals is relatively water rich and would supplement supplies.

Animal bladder waterskins are something I'd hesitate before using, given the higher cost and vulnerability to rot.

Turns out Polynesians carried water in the form of gords, bamboo and drinking coconuts. While I don't want to say they are TL 0, they do give you a lowest-tech-possible look at long ocean voyages.

Just ask the GM if the costs can be swapped between Regeneration (Slow) and Very Rapid Healing. Simple 8-).

>picking all 9 paths at once
I think you overdid with usability and went straight to overshadowing everyone else.

Good thoughts. If it makes it any better, consider Ritual Adept is banned from the campaign.

I couldn't imagine not running Thaumatology and Urban Magics, they're ridiculous fun.

External Sources Only and Spirit brokerage in particular.

Eh, she's good at literally nothing else and goes last in pretty much any combat.

That's a good point though. Pretty much nobody needs every path. Focus on 2-3 to be good at.

>Can I attack and move?

Man, that gets old trying to explain to people. The short answer is yes, but you shouldn't because it's a bad idea. Move forward and go on full defense, or step forward 1 and wait to bitch slap anyone that attacks you.

Also, combat is not supposed to be a big thing in this campaign.

Amen; dnd bleeding into everyone's mentality.

The only effective move and attacks I've seen are slams (from HUGE GUTS guys who can dish out the shield bashes) or flying tackle all out attacks (because they don't get reduced attack rolls to hit)

I'm looking at you, Grunk and Gray. Both of you were nuts.

Well, that means she will overshadow more. The disadvantage that she's a obvious, vulnerable target in combat won't matter nearly as much if she isn't going to get threatened, and do anything utility magic could steal the spotlight.

>Shield slams from huge people.

That will fucking do it. Even a single step shield slam from a large/strong person can knock another person down.

Sup /gurpsgen/.

I'm making a culture of very high-brow people. What are some unique customs and social mores that could set them apart? I want the PCs in my tabletop campaign to enjoy navigating a social minefield, and maybe have an excuse to bust out the sweet Social Engineering book.

Connoisseur (Codpieces)

Ok round two. Added a disadvantage and added some more skills. Still within my cap of [-30] points.

Two questions regarding Engineering.
First is that I'm a little confused by what said and it affects how I would have to purchase engineering. What is the purpose of lowering the TL of a setting in teh post apocalypse if higher levels of technology is still available? I get that people would have to adopt lower TL methods of survival but shouldn't the setting default to the highest level of technology readily present?

For example, if this were fallout would the TL be 4 like in AtE, or TL 9/10 to reflect the presence of ray guns, powered exoskeletons, and nuclear powered cars? Or would it be TL 7 since the world stopped improving in the 50's?

The second question applies if the TL for this setting is going to be considered TL 5+. Would it make sense for a normal person to have knowledge of applied mathematics? Because it seems like a combination of mechanic and machinist gives me the proper combination of "figure out what's broken and fix it" that I would need. I don't imagine I would make it so that a character needs to do any heavy modifications to say a vehicle and he would just fix what is broken with what parts are available/can be scrounged up. I read the blurb about "Design-repair-use" so i have a better understanding of why engineering is important, I just think it's not imperative for this situation.

I am planning to run this scenario partly as a hexcrawler so they will be traveling long distances and mechanical breakdown is a possibility. So having mechanic skills is something I would definitely suggest to the players unless they want to risk breakdown and either walking to their destination or hoping any nearby settlement has someone who can help; although that does also add for RP and encounter opportunities either way.

There's a great many real world customs that could get players into trouble.

Men may only speak with a woman if introduced, and only with a chaperone present.

Failing to use the correct forms of address and titles is consider an insult.

Only people with 'honor' are considered worthy of consideration and respect, nobody else gets to play in high socieity

If you are insulted it's dishonorable to not demand an apology or a duel.

If you insult someone deliberately it's dishonorable to apologize.

It's dishonorable to refuse a duel.

Duels are typically held only to first blood and considered to satisfy honor for bolt parties, with the winner being considered in the 'right', though that doesn't really matter.

Killing someone in a duel is likely to result in a vendetta from their family and repeated attempts to bait you into more duels, in order to kill you.

One of the good things about After the End is that it (pretty much) ignores TL. Build your characters as if they are TL 8 for the skills and abilities, ignore TL-based penalties for operating equipment and keep in mind the highest tech-level before the fall. If there's higher tech out there from before, you might find TL 9 or 10 items in the ruins of the old world.

>Most people know applies mathematics..

If it's a typical 1-3 generations (20 to 60 years) from the fall, then many people would, but it's quite possible for there to be people that have lost literacy, knowledge of mathematics and a basic awareness of the history of the world.

ATE doesn't set things to TL 4 so much as state that, so long as the knowledge of the old world remains, small communities can more or less keep up a TL 4 technology base, producing decent steel, simple guns and powder and non-mechanized agriculture. It's the Robensin Cruso level.

TL 5 and 6 stuff can still be made, it's harder though and cost twice to four times as much to build or buy as it would with a proper society to support it.

Higher TL stuff might, rarely, be made in high tech enclaves, but mostly it's scavaged.

Mechanic lets you diagnose problems with a machine and fix them if you have the right parts and materials at hand.

Machinist lets you make spare parts and materials for a mechanic to use, if you have the tools and raw material available and a design for the part you need. This would include simple modifications to make a part fit (putting a big-block Chevy carburetor on a old Ford V-8)

Engineer (Automotive) would let you study an engine with parts missing, design a blueprint and all the parts required to make it work, then give that blueprint to a machinist to build the parts.

Without an engineer you won't be able to build parts you don't have plans for or truly radical new machines.

Without a machinist you won't be able to build spare parts. You will have to find parts that are working, or ones you can rebuild. You also won't be able to build things like sheets of armor, so you'd be limited to pretty crude modifications.

Without a mechanic, you are sunk. You won't be able to install parts and make them work together, or identify problems.

If he's supposed to be alive for a while I'd strongly suggest Combat Reflexes (15) and .25 more speed (5 point) to bump his dodge up to a far more survivable 10.

I also suggest anyone that plans to get in a gunfight invest in Luck (Defensive Only) for (12).

For most PA games I've seen you take the before the bombs TL, unless you get the Low TL disadvantage to reflect you are a primitive fucker.

So, I'd never heard much about GURPS beyond people recommending it for literally everything and jokes that you need to be a rocket surgeon to do the math involved. Is it really that bad? Where do those claims come from?

Also, the fantasy splat is written by archaeologists and historians? Holy shit, that's awesome.

Once I've learned the system, I'll be available to help with any unofficial stuff you all want/need. I'm not working in the field yet, but I'm a cultural anthropology graduate student.

It's really cool that the splats are made by people who know their shit.

>Is it really that bad?
No.

>Where do those claims come from?
A sourcebook (GURPS Vehicles) from the previous edition (Just so you know, GURPS 4th Edition came out circa 2004~. So this outdated meme has been going for well over a dozen years.)

>It's really cool that the splats are made by people who know their shit.
Yes, that's something GURPS prides itself on.

>What is the purpose of lowering the TL of a setting in teh post apocalypse if higher levels of technology is still available? I get that people would have to adopt lower TL methods of survival but shouldn't the setting default to the highest level of technology readily present?

In AtE it's only lowered for economic purposes. That is, most places can produce TL4-type goods, they use TL4-equivalent farming methods and people generally live a TL4 lifestyle. Higher TL items are available, but cost much more, so most people rely on stuff which is about as good as TL4 gear (plate armour, melee weapons, black powder blunderbusses). In most cases it isn't quite the same as you would find at actual TL4, but it's about as effective; better understanding of science, a wider range of crops and the odd functional piece of farm machinery increase food production, but genetic damage, lack of suitable animals, missing practical experience, etc. all decrease it again. You might think of it as something like TL8-4 if you use alternative TL terminology.

In AtE skills don't have a TL and everyone is assumed to be familiar with both advanced and primitive technology.

>For example, if this were fallout would the TL be 4 like in AtE, or TL 9/10 to reflect the presence of ray guns, powered exoskeletons, and nuclear powered cars? Or would it be TL 7 since the world stopped improving in the 50's?

I'd call the 'high point' of Fallout technology something like TL7+2^ (TL9 equivalent with superscience but using an alternative advancement path after TL7). Their effective economic TL is probably better than 4, since guns and decent body armour are common, a fairly small agricultural class seem able to support a standing military and numerous specialists, etc. Maybe effective TL 5 for economics. Raiders and tribal groups might be lower TL, effectively TL3 for economics and TL7 being about the high-point of technology they can use.

>I'm not working in the field yet, but I'm a cultural anthropology graduate student.

One joke supplement that it was suggested we try and actually write if we could find someone who knew about the subject was GURPS Marital Arts; a book about how marriage works in different societies. I think it would be fantastic if you would be willing to flesh that daft idea out into something actually useful, even if it's just an article-length piece. I'm sure there are plenty of people here who would be happy to help with the rules side of things.